Software for managing medium sized projects

Question

So, at my current job we're usually 1-3 developers, 1-2 art directors and 1 project manager on each project, with the smallest ones just being one of each and the larger ones being three developers and two art directors.

I'm looking for a software, combination of softwares or some type of service that will allow us to manage our projects individually, it's important that we're able to manage several projects at once within one system/piece of software (without going through a too complicated setup process for each project) since we usually have 2-3 ongoing projects in parallel.

We need to be able to integrate with SVN, Track bugs/features/request, Put up milestones and some type of agile management a´la SCRUM would be nice.

Preferably it should be able to run on Windows (without to much hassle, ever tried to put up Apache+Python+Svn+Trac on the same Windows 2003 server and get them all to run together? not fun.) since we mostly do .NET development and most of our servers run Windows 2003.

Answer 1

I personally use BaseCamp for my company and have had great luck with it!

Edit oops, I didn't notice the SVN requirement, BaseCamp can help with the other stuff.

Answer 2

You might want to try out Mantis (www.mantisbt.org). It is a little cumbersome at first, but with a little bit of customization, it will work for you. It has SVN integration, and a bunch of other stuff which I haven't used yet... :|... such as Mobile support, Wiki support, etc.

And it's OSS (Open Source Software). Written in PHP, works with MySQL, or PostgreSQL. Just check it out, it's good.

http://www.mantisbt.org/

Answer 3

Atlassian's Jira Studio sounds like exactly what you need. It's hosted, so there's nothing to install.

Answer 4

If you want something that is quick and easy to work with that integrates well with Windows I would suggest Microsoft Office Groove. I have been using it on my current project and it also easily allows you to start new projects and add members.

It is not the best solution in the world, but it is included with Office '07 and it has tools to help with project management, bug reporting, calendar, meeting summaries, etc.

The one major problem I have found with it is that version control is not included by default. From what I understand you have to setup a SharePoint server to have version control in Groove, but I have not done this yet and have been hoping that my backups will work fine.

Answer 5

Since you seem to have a maximum of six people working in a single room - I'd give serious consideration to not using software at all.

A whiteboard & cork board for each project, plus a whole lot of index cards / stickies can go a long, long way towards meeting the project management needs of one or two small projects.

(Failing that - I've found basecamp a fairly lightweight tool for small projects - although it doesn't do any sort of source control integration. I've also heard good things about the latest FogBugz - but I've had such bad personal experiences of earlier versions I've not tried it yet myself)

Answer 6

+1 for starting out with a whiteboard, stickies and whatever other office supplies you can think of. Being able to visualize the state of your project in a big visible wall can be really useful, more so than software-based tracking, IMHO.

You need to make sure the team is committed to keeping it up-to-date, though.